How did Civil Law evolve?

Our civil law tradition has been slowly changing and evolving through the years due to our
different necessities and by the influence of society as a whole. A keyword that is very significant to the
historical development of civil law is “synthesis” or an “amalgamation” of different experiences and
episodes in human history. Although we cannot necessarily connect this to historical materialism or the
Hegelian dialectic, we can truly derive that we are constantly changing our laws to fit our situations
through the influence of societies, morals, norms, and cultures in general. To plot out the evolution of
civil law, we go back to the very beginning which is Roman Law, as the tradition and system is a “product
of the interaction among” Roman law, Germanic customary law, and Canon law. (Mousourakis, 2015,
preface vii).

‘Civil law’ comes from the Latin word “ius civile” which pertain the law applicable to all Roman
citizens or cives. As a city-state, Rome was a force to be reckoned with as they were the seat of military
and commercial power in the ancient world. Early customs and traditions were put in writing by
inscribing them in bronze tablets which would then be known as the “Twelve Tables”. The Twelve Tables
would eventually be the basis for all Roman civil law and the foundation of civil law as we know it today.
(Britannica.org) Through the evolution of the Roman civil law, there had been an interaction between
custom, enacted law and case law which “led to the formation of a highly sophisticated system gradually
developed from layers of different elements”. Again, Roman civil law was “not a result of legislation but
of jurisprudence”, it was not due to changing customs but of a tradition passed on to specialists which
were mostly belonging to the priestly class or secular jurists.

By the 6th century, the Roman Emperor Justinian reunited the East and the West and moved for
the restoration of the legal system. He appointed members of the empire to collate the different laws of
Rome which resulted to the compilation of Roman law which was known as the Corpus iuris civilis or the
Code of Justinian. Justinian wanted to restore the former glory of the legal system of Rome as he
thought that the law should be used to resolve conflict and provide a system for society; However, the
Code of Justinian had a problem being received by the public because of the superiority that Roman law
jurists had over lay judges and local law practitioners. Although Justinian tried to abolish the different
treaties and laws outside of the Corpus iuris civilis, people were also siding with church law during that
time, which was a rising legal system in Rome. Compared to the Justinian Code, Canon law was found to
be far more rational due to its rules of evidence and other procedural methods. Although the Code of
Justinian was more commercial and state based, it was not able to integrate local laws which many of
the citizens adhered to. Roman law governed public and private laws in a feudal society such as laws on
contracts, properties, succession, and the like, while Canon law was more concerned on marriage, may it
be Germanic, Roman, or feudal based. Since there was some sort of seclusion of local laws, a new
system emerged during the Middle Ages, which was the jus commune or the Common law. (Brittanica)

During the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of nationalism through the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation movements, there was a steady outcry for unification and stabilization of
European countries. With the creation of modern day nations, each country wanted to make their local
laws unique from others which led to the system of codification. Codification was seen as a way to
preserve the laws for future generations to refer to. The movement started in 1683 in Denmark, then in
Norway in 1687, up to Sweden and Finland in 1734. The spread of the movement for codification
reached France in 1804 and due to its popularity and influence; French private and criminal law would
be known as the Napoleonic Code. Paying homage to Napoleon, this codification was considered as “a
republication of the works of Justinian, modified to suit the new phases of French history.” Eventually,
Louis IX of France would order that the Roman law be translated into French. (Alexander, 1896, p. 24)

Germany followed suit much later than France when it codified its court organization as well as
its civil and criminal procedures in 1879. The German Civil Code, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch für das
deutsche Reich, only took effect in 1900. The French and Germans mainly influenced its neighboring
countries like Austria and Switzerland which became models for other countries like China and Japan.
From this, it is derived that the whole civil law family is divided into the French, or Romanist, branch and
the German, or Germanic, branch.

Today, each nation as an independent state, has its own laws and regulations which are all
deeply rooted in Roman law. “Virtually all modern civil law systems have increasingly made use of
uncodified statutory law in order to regulate broad areas of social and economic life.” This is because,
we have changed our rules in order to suit our needs and our own culture. This is the evolution of laws;
it is ever changing and will continue to be transformed in many ways to adapt to changing norms that
will be obsolete in the future. Codification has helped us see our past and we use our history to guide us
make decisions that can impact and influence the lives of our citizens.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-law-Romano-Germanic/Property

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CommonLawCivilLawTraditions.pdf